Anna had been in Sacramento for almost four weeks by the time I made the trip north from Palm Springs. It was the first time we had ever been separated. Dad and I pulled in the driveway from the airport and Anna came running out to greet me, bouncing with excitement.

The morning of my Dad’s arrival, I could tell mom felt concerned about what might come of his visit, because she sat quietly looking at the floor in deep thought. Throughout our childhood we were told several stories, as to why she could never let us see him, one of which was, “He told me, he would take you away to Greece and I’d never see you again.

Anna and I loved Palm Springs; we loved our school, friends and the distinct feeling of being normal, or at least what I imagined normal to feel like. After my first photo shoot with Rick, I was more certain than ever that I wanted to be a model. Mom worked most of the time and Read More

We settled into our new life in Palm Springs, the Morongo Indian Reservation was quickly fading into its proper place, oblivion. I was halfway past my 13th birthday, we had nice friends, Mom got a job cutting hair downtown, and I loved our new school Raymond Cree. I even had my very first crush: his name was Jerry Lindel, and I thought he was the most handsome boy I had ever seen, but Anna said, “He was homely and a geek.”

One more chore was added to our list. Anna and I were required to work in Chris’s cigarette shack on the weekends. It was a 12ft x 12ft shack made out of plywood, next to I-10 at the Banning pass. Chris’s cigarette shack sat like a discarded shoebox on the dusty side of Hadley’s Fruit Orchard.

Over the next several weeks Anna and I got more settled with life on the reservation, but we didn’t like it any more than the first day. Mom enrolled us in the nearest public school, it wasn’t on the reservation, but the reservation kids attended. I don’t remember the name of it, I’ll just call it school No. “7”.

Anna and I were shown to the room we were going to share by Chris’s mom, Mrs. Morgan. The furniture in the room was old. There was a framed black and white photo of Mrs. Morgan as a young woman with her three son’s Chris, Daniel and Lee, surrounded by little knickknacks and souvenirs from her life on the dresser.